Yes, I’m going to start another blog series.
I know, I know, you are right to be skeptical. Let’s see, besides 54 reviews I want to post, the blog series I currently have going are:
Sonderling Sunday
Conference Corner
Sondy’s Selections
Librarians Help
And, yes, I intended for most of those to be weekly series….
So now I want to start a series that will have 300 entries! Will it ever end? Will it even get off the ground?
Here’s the deal. When Betsy Bird of School Library Journal’s Fuse #8 blog decided to run another Top 100 Chapter Books and Top 100 Picture Books Poll, she put out a call for volunteers to help tally the results. Since I love spreadsheets and counting things and detail work, I quickly sent a “Pick Me! Pick Me!” e-mail. Now, mind you, I wasn’t content to only total the results of the top 100 books. It struck me as unfair that certain authors like Dr. Seuss with a wide body of work and no clear favorite would suffer in the standings. So I also tallied up the top chapter books authors, picture book authors, and picture book illustrators.
Betsy has graciously told me I can post this data on my own blog. I was thinking I’d just blast the info out there this weekend.
But then I got to thinking. Perhaps it’s because I’m feeling dead tired, still jetlagged from my trip to California less than a week ago. The thought of posting 300 names is simply daunting.
And, after all… why should I post all of them at once? Between you and me, the ONLY thing I didn’t like about Betsy’s posts was I couldn’t keep up. I was at ALA Annual Conference and on vacation when the big dramatic reveal of the highest numbers happened. I still haven’t read all the posts. (Though I assure you, I will.)
Personally, I’m not in a hurry to post about them. It would actually be quite fun to focus on one name at a time. I can link to all of Betsy’s posts about books by each person, link to my own reviews of any books by each person, throw in some of my own anecdotes, and end up with a very very long-running blog series out of it. Since it may be years before I get to the end, I will also start at the top with the Number One names, and then just go as long as I feel like it.
So — keep watching and I will post about the #1 Chapter Book Author very soon!